Os Mosqueteiros do Mal

Holden, Carey and Bendix are three bandits holding up stagecoaches until a chase separates one from the other two. Those two eventually join up with the Texas Rangers and reform, while the one keeps to his old outlaw ways. Thus, the stage is set for the final showdown. Mona Freeman is the love interest who falls for one of the bandits but eventually catches on that the man of her dreams is really someone else. I saw this one when I was a kid and the scene of one of the characters being gunned down in cold blood from beneath the table blew me away. That still packs a wallop, but after having watched "Streets of Loredo" again, I realize it is all pretty routine as Westerns go. Even so, it's full of the clichés and values that made me love them when I was growing up. A young Macdonald Carey stands out as the dashing villain dressed, of course, in black.

Three happy-go-lucky Western outlaws, fresh from robbing a stage, stumble on a particularly nasty land grab and break it up, and win the heart of the young girl living on the ranch. Circumstances intervene and two of the outlaws become Texas Rangers and the other becomes a notorious outlaw. Complications ensue, when our new rangers are called upon to arrest the notorious outlaw.

This is a perfectly decent Western, though the plot is extremely generic. The first half-hour or so, showing our three charming outlaws and our young heroine is thoroughly bland -- interesting only that McDonald Carey is really the lead in this portion of the movie, and he is a charming one at that. William Holden plays his role as "youthful sidekick" and Willam Bendix (!!) has the Gabby Hayes part.

As the movie goes along, something fairly unusual in a genre film happens. The characters grow and change. Holden becomes the stalwart hero torn between friendship and duty. William Bendix is forced to choose which of his two friends he will support. McDonald Carey goes from charming outlaw to charming black-hearted villain. All the actors pull it off well. The heroine -- who goes from feisty youngster to babe in cowboy boots, doesn't do so well This ain't John Ford. But it is a pleasant surprise once the plot get going.

Streets of Laredo is directed by Leslie Fenton and adapted to screenplay by Charles Marquis Warren from a Louis Stevens and Elizabeth Hill story. It stars William Holden, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix and Mona Freeman. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Ray Rennahan.

For fans of traditional Westerns this is as solid as a Brick Adobe Structure. A remake of The Texas Rangers (1936) of sorts, plot finds Holden, Bendix and Carey as three bad boys who get divided by circumstance, love and conscious. Two of them wind up in the Texas Rangers - the famed frontier law enforcement battalion - the other stays on the wrong side of the law. All roads lead to the day of reckoning...

The production is the usual mixed bag of superlative location photography (Simi Valley/Gallup) and crude back projection so often seen in the 40s and 50s Oater releases, with Rennahan's Technicolor photography a treat for the eyes. Performances are assured because the three principal guy actors are given characterisations that suits them - Holden tough emotional anti-hero - Bendix a lovable and dopey toughie - Carey sly bad boy. Freeman is lovely but it's a dressage character, while Alfonso Bedoya is on hand for some stereotypical bandido villainy.

At 90 minutes in length it feels a bit padded out until the two guys actually join the Rangers, so some patience is required during the first half. However, there is plenty of Western movie action within the story, some turns in plotting to grab the heart strings and a pleasing array of costumes and musical accompaniments to keep the senses perky. All told, it's just a thoroughly enjoyable Oater regardless of if you have happened to have seen the original version. 7/10

Paramount's remake of their own 1936 western "The Texas Rangers" has three small-time stagecoach robbers separated after tangling with a sniveling extortionist and his cohorts in 1879 Texas; two of the men inadvertently join the Texas Rangers and find that working for the right side of the law really suits them, while the third man becomes a notorious outlaw. Despite some confusion in the character motivations and loyalties, this is an astute, absorbing drama with beautiful photography and solid performances. Who would've ever guessed Macdonald Carey could be a worthy opponent for William Holden? Dressed all in black, with a smug expression and heavy-lidded eyes, Carey is a surprisingly formidable villain. Holden, despite several sigh-heavy movie star close-ups, is very convincing with a gun and a horse; his character's playing both sides, while also falling for tomboyish Mona Freeman, provides the heart of the story, and Holden is never less than exciting to watch. Extremely well-directed by Leslie Fenton, with fine supporting work by William Bendix and a bouncy score by Victor Young. *** from ****

I first watched this 1949 Western unremarkably ditected by Leslie Fenton in the mid-1970s. I was then around 17, and I did not like it, finding among other things that Mona Freeman looked too young for the part, that mediocre color cinematography did not make the most of mountains and other landscapes, that the dialogue seemed trite and stale, among other minuses.

McDonald Carey delivers a suave, villainous, deceptive performance that steals the show. He abandons his stagecoach-robbing partners, William Bendix and Holden, to seek better pay with cattle rustler and criminal kingpin Alfonso Bedoya (whose role is surprisingly short, considering his unforgettable part in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE one year earlier).

Watching STREETS OF LAREDO a second time nearly 50 years later, this time I enjoyed it more, though I still see it as a rehash of ideas in Westerns at the time, the dialogue stale in parts, Holden underused. But this time Freeman seems to grow up into an adult woman during the movie.

Good pace, some humor - especially by dimwitted Bendix - make it worth watching at least once 7/10.